Question

Write the chemical formula of zinc acetate and antimony trioxide.

Answer 1

Chemical formula:

• A chemical formula is a formula that gives information about atoms of each element present, the number of each atom present and its respective chemical proportion in constituting a compound.
• The valencies of the element and its charge are also used in writing chemical formulas.

Zinc acetate:

Step $1$: The cations and anions in the zinc acetate are zinc is the cation and acetate is the anion.$\mathrm{Zn}\left(\mathrm{Cation}\right){\mathrm{CH}}_3\mathrm{COO}\left(\mathrm{anion}\right)$

Step $2$: The valency of cation and anion is

$$\begin{gathered} \mathrm{Zn}{\mathrm{CH}}_3\mathrm{COO} \\ +2-1 \end{gathered}$$

Step $3$: Now, on interchanging the valencies we get the chemical formula,

• Thus, the chemical formula of zinc acetate is $\mathrm{Zn}{\left({\mathrm{CH}}_3{\mathrm{CO}}_2\right)}_2$

Antimony trioxide:

Step $1$: The cation and anion present in the compound is $\mathrm{Sb}\left(\mathrm{cation}\right)\mathrm{and}\mathrm{O}\left(\mathrm{Anion}\right)$

Step $2$: The valency of cation and anion is

$$\begin{gathered} \mathrm{Sb}\mathrm{O} \\ -2+3 \end{gathered}$$

Step $3$: Now, on interchanging the valencies we get the chemical formula,

• Thus, the chemical formula for antimony trioxide is ${\mathrm{Sb}}_2{\mathrm{O}}_3$.